The Defense Department is now investigating whether live anthrax was brought into the Pentagon building itself, according to a Tuesday report from CNN.
The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, its police force, is one of the agencies that received shipments of anthrax from a U.S. Army lab. That shipment now must be tested to see if it is live, CNN said.
An Army lab at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah had accidentally sent out three batches of live anthrax that were supposed to be inactive. Samples from those batches were shipped out to military and private labs in at least 12 states and three countries for research and training purposes.
{mosads}Those states are: California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Virginia and Wisconsin. The countries are South Korea, Australia and Canada.
More than 30 shipments already shipped to these locations reportedly must be tested.
Only the lab in Maryland has reported actually receiving live anthrax, but Pentagon officials say they are operating as if all labs that received samples from those batches are also live.
The Pentagon first became aware of the live samples after a lab in Maryland discovered live instead of dead anthrax and notified the Pentagon on May 22. The Pentagon then notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 23.
The Pentagon has not confirmed whether any of the anthrax was brought into the building. It was meant to be used to calibrate sensors used to detect chemical or biological agents, CNN said.
The CDC launched an investigation into the shipments on Friday. The Department of Defense said it will conduct its own investigation afterward.